Never Forget
by DragonRose888
Summary: Two Pokemon Dolls, a card made by a small child, a locket, a pet collar, a pacifier, and a dead flower. The items of a child who misunderstood what it was to love. Gary-centric. Can be read as GaryAsh/AshGary and as friendship or love.


**Author's Note: I know, I know, I keep promising stories that never seem to get up here. Good news, though: this one's up. Have fun with it while I yank my hair out trying to finish the AkuSora two-shot I keep going on about. It WILL happen. **

**Fic-Name: Never Forget**

**Summary: Two Pokemon Dolls, a card made by a small child, a locket, a pet collar, a pacifier, and a dead flower. The items of a child who misunderstood what it was to love. Gary-Centric. Can be seen as GaryxAsh/AshxGary in friendship or in love.**

**Warnings: Mentions of death. Past violence mentioned.**

**Never Forget**

A Wonnykins Production

It started with the slam of a door.

Well, no, it didn't. It started at dinner, really. But for Gary, everything seemed to start with the slam of that door.

He hadn't meant to start a fight in the middle of dinner. How could he help it? It was only second nature to berate his rival. He hadn't counted on everyone _else _interfering when Ash had simply had enough.

There had been blood trickling down his lip as the door's slam echoed down the hall and in his ears. The room before him was bleak, desolate. It looked like a guest room, nothing like the room of a teenage boy. Any boy his age who had kept his room this neat couldn't have been normal...or straight, for that matter. But Gary had kept it that way for years.

Now, in a fit of rage, he began to tear it apart.

All the books he'd spent hundreds of dollars on over the years? Down they went. Pictures of his parents? Meaningless. Glass broke as soon as they hit the floor. He smirked sadistically as he crushed the glass and mangled the fragile pictures inside. The memories of them were faint, unimportant. They hadn't cared about him very much, and, in return, Gary didn't care about them, either.

Drawers from his desk hit the floor with loud bangs, supplies clattering and rolling everywhere. Papers from school he'd worked on for ages and had aced he ripped apart, as if they were just ramblings he'd jotted down in five seconds flat.

The wardrobe he had prided himself on he pitched, too. What good were they if all they did was get him the kind of attention he hated more then anything? One shirt, a white one, still had a lipstick print on the collar.

There was a loud ripping noise as he tore it apart.

The left over pieces drifted onto the floor, and Gary turned his attention to his bed. Off went the covers, the pillows, the mattress itself, leaving only the frame in place, opening into a space he hadn't seen in who knew how long-

And that was when he saw it.

Buried behind tons of old games he'd used to play, old shoes, old toys that he had forgotten to retrieve, there was a chest. The anger suddenly drained out of him, and he slumped forward, reaching for it and lifting out from under the now empty bed frame.

It was painted red. Gary knew why even now: because that was what his sister had told him to do.

_'Red's a good color! At least you won't loose it...'_

Her voice faded, and he blinked. He had forgotten what she'd sounded like up until that point.

Feeling curious and rather tired, he sat amidst the destroyed remains of his room on the floor and fiddled with the latch on the box. The last time, he knew, that it had been opened, was six years ago.

_'I don't need this! Or this! Or THIS!-'_

A different kind of anger flooded into him: a desperate kind. It was that of which he had last closed the chest with, six years ago. And suddenly he dreaded having it in his hands, the lock winking innocently at him.

He had forgotten what was in it.

The key, he knew, was where it always had been: taped to the underside of the box. His grandfather had said-

_'Now, Gary, I know you don't __**like **__it, but I don't want you to loose that-'_

There it was, again. His thumb ran tenderly, almost _lovingly_, across the lock, before ripping the taped key off the underside and...hesitating.

Did he really...?

The key fell into the lock, turned, and the lid popped open before he even knew what was going on. It popped because it had been-

_'-forced shut, there was so much in it that-'_

-hadn't been able to shut. And it became clear why.

There were two stuffed Pokemon dolls right on top. One was old, frayed, and seemed to have stains on it. That one was shaped like a Squirtle, and its button eyes were gone. With hands that had bruised knuckles, the auburn-haired boy plucked the doll from the chest and-

_'-shivered. It was cold. There was a storm outside and the new house creaked ominously. "Mommy." He said, but mommy wasn't there, because mommy-'_

He hurled the doll from him. It struck the far wall and slid down, sitting in a slumped position with its worn face to the floor. Gary's chest heaved with deep breaths. That was why he hadn't wanted ton open the chest.

Memories.

The other doll loomed out at him. This one was a Growlith, and its button eyes were still in place. There was dirt ground into the fur where it remained, and numerous stitches on its fuzzy body, because-

_'-he and Ash played rough with it. They sat outside on the front step, Gary in tears, Ash in tears because Gary was in tears, and waiting for Mrs. Ketchem to walk out and hold it to him so that he could-'_

-throw it with a noise of disgust from him. This one joined the first, sitting on its back, head pointed his way. The button eyes were silently accusing, as if saying 'How could you?'. And Gary didn't reply; he merely averted his eyes back into the inside of the box.

There was a card, there, this time.

He plucked it from its confines and let his eyes wander over the front. 'Get Well Soon!' Was scrawled on it; not a store bought card, but hand drawn, with the 'G' done backwards and the 'o's in 'Soon' as large as the other letters. A picture of a band-aid was drawn on the front, and on the inside, after flipping it open, he saw it read-

_'-Please? It was in bright red crayon, and a sad face was drawn. Underneath it, the word 'Ash' was signed in even more horrible writing. The boy himself looked unhappy as he handed the card over, and Gary smiled from his bed and told him "I will, I promise!". And then Ash ran forward and hugged him and the card-'_

Fell from his hand, to the side. He didn't spare it another glance. He couldn't figure out why he had kept the stupid thing. 'It's not stupid, that's why' resounded from a more childish side of his mind, but he ignored it in favor of the next thing in the chest.

The locket looked like Gary's yin-yang. It was tacky looking, made of cheap copper and the hinges squealed when it opened, revealing-

_'silhouettes of his parents. The coroner gave him a pitying look as he clutched in his tiny fist, eyes full of confusion. "I'm sorry." The man said. "...I'm sure they'd have wanted you to have it." And he whimpered as the man walked past, leaving the child all alone in the room with two gurneys, each carting a closed body bag. They said his parents were in those. But if that was true, how could they-'_

Breathe. He sucked in a breath, snapping the frames closed...but this item he didn't let go of. Instead, the copper chain he wound around his hand. The locket on the end hung from his wrist and he stared at it. He remembered feeling so cold and alone, waiting ages in that room for his parents to get up so that they could go home. He hadn't understood what it was to 'die'.

Something jingled as he shifted in his position. The next thing he pulled out was a collar. A collar with a bell. There were still bits of white, cream-colored fur clinging to it where-

_'-Muffins' neck was. The Meowth purred against his hand, even as he wailed because the cat pokemon didn't have its eyes. The neighborhood boys had chased it into the street, and now its face was gone. One eye was over there, and one was dangling out of its socket onto Gary's lap. And Ash was standing off to the side, being sick, because they had SEEN Muffins get hit by that car, and there was blood spattered on Gary's front, where he had been hit with it while trying to rescue his cat. And then Ash collapsed by his side and they both told Muffins it was going to be okay, that they were going to save it, that they were going to take the collar off and Muffins would never have to wear it again and he could be free and then they would take the collar and-'_

-clutch it tightly in his fist. The bell jingled, spots of dried blood still present on it. Poor Muffins. That had been Gary's first pet while he'd been living with his grandfather. He hadn't had one after that. The vet gave him the collar, they held a funeral, and then he vowed never to have one ever again.

Training, he thought, didn't count as having pets. It counted as...being...

He couldn't come up with the words.

He placed the collar on his knee carefully, and the bell jingled.

"Here kitty kitty."

But the empty room yielded no happy mew and no more jingling. Gary shook his head and turned back to the box.

A binky.

That he toyed around with, passing it from hand to hand. It had been his, at some point. He was too young to remember. Then it was-

_'-for a new baby. His sister was so excited, but Gary didn't understand why. Over the days, she was packing things, and Granddad was helping her, and he just dragged around his stuffed animals as he watched. Her stomach got bigger, and then a man began to show up more often. He hated that man. He called him 'squirt' and 'kiddo', and he didn't like it. Then his sister's room was empty. He heard talk about getting 'married'. Then she gave him a kiss on the cheek, said 'Take care, Gary', and left. Left with that man. And never came back. Not ever. He sat in her room for months waiting, but she never did. She left the pacifier behind, the one he gave her to help with the baby she said she was getting. But she left it. It was the only thing he'd given her and she'd left it.  
After half a year, he gave up, knowing she wasn't coming back, and that if she hadn't taken it, she probably didn't love him anymore, either. And he threw that binky-'  
_-right back into the chest. He was shaking as he stared down at it. His eyes were watery, his heart heavy. No, Daisy had never come back. She had gotten married after getting pregnant and had moved far away. She talked to their grandfather, would ask for him, but Gary had started to hate her, at that point. His nephew he never met. She never came to visit, and he hated her for that.

Now...

Now he wasn't sure whether he was right to hate her or not.

The last thing in the chest was something he found most precious. With shaking fingers, he reached for it. A drop of blood fell from his bleeding lip onto the back of his hand, but he paid it no mind.

Withdrawn from the chest was a small, dead flower. It had been pressed under all the junk in the chest for years. (Not junk, Gary, not junk). It had once been purple, his favorite color, and it was his favorite-

_'-Because Ash's was red and Gary's was blue. And together, they made purple. At least, that was Ash's logic. And it was the dark-haired boy who told him this while handing him this little flower rather bashfully one day. _

_"You're my best friend." He said, and Gary had smiled. _

_"Yeah. You're MY best friend." And Ash had smiled back._

_And he hadn't let go of that flower all day. He had the flower in one and Ash's hand in the other and it was so wonderful to have a friend, because his parents were gone and his sister didn't love him anymore and Granddad was always, ALWAYS busy. And he held his flower at night close to his heart and thought it was going to burst, because he was so happy that he was-'_

-crying.

A tear drop landed on the long-dead petal of the flower and rolled off. He was miserable.

He had, after all these years, said that his parents had never loved him. He believed they had gotten themselves killed on purpose so that they'd never have to take care of him anymore. He had believed his sister had forgotten all about him in favor of her new family. He pushed away his grandfather because the old man was always so busy and had never had time to give the young, confused Gary the love he had needed.

He had had only one friend. And that friend had given him a bloody lip just moments before.

And Gary hated himself more then any one of them at that moment. After a moment's hesitation, he made his way across the floor and picked up the two stuffed dolls on the floor. If someone were to have looked in at that moment, they would have seen a child. Not a boy of sixteen, but a child that had the world swept out from under his feet so many times that he had become a horrible, solitary bully of a teenager.

Oh, how he hated himself for that.

The dolls stared lifelessly out at the room, one with eyes and one without. They shook silently, but only because the person holding them was sobbing quietly into what was left of their fur.

Gary Oak was then the lowest he'd ever felt in his entire life.

A tiny, unseen sort of power radiated from each of the objects. 'Never forget, Gary', was like a mantra.

'Never forget.'

"I am SO sorry. I don't know what came over him, professor..."

The professor only smiled, a fake one that didn't meet his eyes. "It's quite all right. I have to have a talk with Gary. The boys are far too old to behave like this, Delilah."

The woman sighed, looking older then she was. The old man felt awful for her. Left alone to raise a feisty young boy on her own was no way to treat a woman. "I know..." She murmured. At her side, her son was nursing his wrist. It would swell up, soon, but thank god it hadn't been dislocated. He stared at his shoes guiltily, his hat shielding his face.

"Now listen to me, Ash." The old man placed a hand on the boy's shoulder, and he looked up in embarrassment. "Don't listen to the things Gary says. He's...just..." A pause. "...I don't know what that boy is, anymore, frankly. But don't take the things he says to heart. He's...troubled, I think."

"Troubled is one way to put it." Tracy grumbled. His dinner had lay on the kitchen floor, trampled on and rubbed into Ash's clothes. "Don't worry. He's a jerk."

At the top of the stairs, Gary Oak flinched, then made his way down. The small gathering looked up. There were several different reactions. The professor scowled, Tracy glared, Mrs. Ketchem tightened her grip on Ash's arm, and Ash himself wouldn't meet his eyes.

But it was him that Gary went right to. Why no one stopped him was anyone's guess, but he later believed they had been waiting to jump in and give him a piece of their minds the moment he set a hand on Ash.

Ash was waiting for it, of course, so when something was shoved under his nose, he flinched. Everyone hesitated, poised to spring in, but Gary sat there, waiting, eyes directed at his shoes. The dark-haired boy peered down at the object Gary was holding out to him. And he recognized it. Gary had been afraid he wouldn't, but it was clear in the other boy's eyes that he knew just what it was.

The petals used to be purple, but they had faded and become fragile, paper thin strips of light tan. Gently, with great care, the boy took what used to be a small flower from Gary's hand and looked at it thoughtfully.

"This is stupid." Gary muttered. "This is all SO stupid."

Ash didn't reply. When he looked up, his face was blank.

"...You remember what you said to me when you gave me that?"

And that was as much of an apology as Ash knew he was going to get. No one else could have understood the significance of what Gary had asked nor the significance of the dried, dead flower. So everyone was surprised when Ash smiled and enveloped Gary into a hug...which Gary then returned. He returned it tightly, hiding his face from the other three people present, somewhere in Ash's shirt. He knew he'd been forgiven when he heard:

"I'd never forget."

~END~

**Author's Note: You know you were sad. You KNOW you felt so sad for him! And even if you didn't, you can at least feed my fat-ass a review. ;D**


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